Upstate Art Weekend 2023: Margaret Innerhofer’s “Shadowland”

An enthralling exhibition curated by Ethan Cohen Gallery at The KuBe Art Center

A former chemistry classroom in a defunct Beacon, New York high school is an appropriately poetic setting for the works within Margaret Innerhofer‘s latest solo exhibition, Shadowland. Innerhofer’s reality-inverting photographic pieces probe the relationship between the conscious and the subconscious—and even reality and the surreal—by pairing one full-color image with its black-and-white reflection (with no direction as to which should be positioned at the top). The Italian-born, US-based artist presents three distinct bodies of work in the show that not only spark thoughtful reactions (metaphorically akin to those of a chemistry lesson) but entice viewers into questioning their own values. The classroom is only one exhibition space found within the KuBe Art Center, the Hudson Valley outpost of Ethan Cohen Gallery, an official partner of the 2023 Upstate Art Weekend. And Innerhofer’s enthralling exhibit was most certainly one of this year’s highlights.

Can you share a little bit about your process—from finding the ideal subject to producing the meditative works?

First and foremost, I am inspired by and therefore focusing on philosophical studies of the subconscious, surrealism, shadows and meditation. It is an investigation of the paradoxical nuances of wake and sleep, conscious and subconscious, space and time, reality and imagination.

I describe myself as a “photo-based artist” rather than a photographer. I have co-produced environmental films in the past. My technique is to juxtapose color with black-and-white photographic images to highlight and question both real and surreal, literal and abstract, light and dark, wake and sleep, present and past. I am fascinated by the otherworldly dimension that lies between our thoughts in the solitude of our inner-world. 

How did you come to these three different series, these three applications of the bigger concept? How do they service this complementary construction?

Well, the three series highlight my own personal journey from growing up in the Italian alps, to first studying architecture and then switching to fine art at university, to being an environmentalist before it became cool and trendy, to my deep fascination with the subconscious. My work therefore explores the convergence of art, architecture and the environment. I am striving to generate meaningful responses to social and ecological challenges.

In my Heavy Metal series, my fascination for American vintage cars drove me to focus on abandoned and outdated vehicles framed by time and encroaching nature. They allude to the collision of past and future, and our own embodied experience of being conscious within a vehicle that is increasingly outdated and perpetually trapped in the present.

In my Deconstr-Activist series, you really see how studying architecture led me to become fascinated with shadows—drawing and sketching, perception of volumes, negative versus positive space, light versus dark, etc. By once again capturing neglected remains being taken over by nature, I am trying to reexamine the physical structures we create to accommodate our fragmented psyches.

Sandmen-Formations began from my own fascination with bird murmurations. I soon began observing beachgoers crossing a specific sand dune in groups, as if choreographed like birds who change formations. This series was taken over many weeks across several summers and always focusing on the same dune. 

I love that they are designed to be inverted. Do you have a personal preference for their position? Does it vary per work?

As all the pieces have frames that are built to be hung color or “shadow side” up, it allows the viewer to hang and to interact with my art by hanging each piece as they want. 

Color side up represents our best foot forward, and how we present ourself to others. The black-and-white side is the reflection. When black-and-white images are facing up, I want to point out that humans are mostly controlled and run by their subconscious. It’s our shadow persona and our subconscious, which is one of humanities main decision-makers and drivers. I recently read on NeuroInsights that not only are humans 80% controlled by their subconscious, but that scientific research has shown that most of our subconscious actions are influenced on experiences gathered from the ages 0 to 10.

Personally, I prefer “shadow side” up as it feels less figurative and feels more surreal. I also like to play around with how I hang multiple images together vertically, horizontally and/or by color. Placing a “shadowland” side up next to an image where the color side is up, for example. 

Do you have any thoughts regarding your exhibit’s alignment with Upstate Art Weekend?

I think it is wonderful and I have so much admiration for Helen Toomer, founder of Upstate Art Weekend, and her dedicated support to “womxn” in the arts. The Hudson Valley has become an incubator and generator of world class contemporary artists. The event brings together a unified field and force, a community of like-minded people of fighters, as well as dreamers, idealists and agents of change. 

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